Pages

Search This Blog

Friday, January 16, 2015

Group calls for Orthodox church reform over alleged Israel land sales

BETHLEHEM --
Christmas is a time for holiday cheer in Bethlehem, as thousands from
across Palestine and around the world converge to celebrate the birth of
Jesus Christ in the hilltop West Bank city.

Onlookers at the
Orthodox Christmas parade on Jan. 6 this year, however, were surprised
to find protesters awaiting the traditional visit of the Patriarch to
Nativity Church, and six youths were even arrested after chanting
slogans against him in Manger Square.

For those participating in
the rally, it was the visit of Jerusalem Patriarch Theophilos III -- not
their protests -- that had ruined Christmas.

"I came here to
celebrate the birth of the Messiah, Jesus Christ, in my way as an Arab
Orthodox (Christian)," Jalal Barham, a member of the Follow-up Committee
of the Arab Orthodox High Council in Beit Sahour told Ma’an at a
protest greeting the church leader at Bethlehem's Catholic Action
Circle.

"My celebration would not be complete if it did not include expressing my opposition to the illegitimate (Patriarch)."

The
protest was part of a growing campaign in Palestine and Jordan loosely
organized under the slogan: "Gheyr Mostaheq/Anaksios," meaning
"illegitimate" in Arabic and Greek respectively.

Supporters of
the campaign accuse the Patriarchate -- reportedly the second-largest
landowner in Jerusalem -- of selling off large amounts of land to
Israeli authorities through long-term leases.

They have brought
forth documents purporting to show that parts of Jewish-only settlements
in the Jerusalem area have been built atop these lands, and in the past
few years a number of scandals have erupted as details emerged of sales
in West Jerusalem neighborhoods as well.

Angered at what they
say is the Orthodox Church's increasing collaboration with the Israeli
occupation, dozens have joined the grassroots movement aimed at creating
change by disrupting the Patriarch's public appearances.

"He is
illegitimate in entering the Nativity Church, where Jesus was born and
from which the message of Christ emerged," Barham told Ma'an. "We
announce in all truthfulness that Theophilos is illegitimate unless he
returns to the teachings of Jesus in defending this Holy Land and not
selling it off to the Israelis."

The campaign has stirred strong
emotions among the 200,000-strong Orthodox faithful in the Holy Land --
including Palestine and Jordan, which are both part of the Patriarch's
realm -- raising larger questions of identity and resistance for a
community struggling to survive in the face of an occupation stretching
back nearly 70 years.

Movement 500 years in the making

The
Gheyr Mostaheq campaign traces its roots back at least a decade, with a
major victory for those opposed to Orthodox land sales to Israel coming
in 2005. In that year, former Patriarch Irenaeus was ousted from his
seat as part of a backlash against land sales he reportedly made to
Jewish settler groups in the Old City.

Activists say that while
Patriarch Theophilos initially resisted pressures to continue such
transactions, within a few years he began offering long-term leases in a
number of areas for settlement construction.

These included
parts of Har Homa, a mountain previously part of Bethlehem but now host
to hundreds of white towers housing Jews exclusively, as well as the
area of Givat Ha-Matos, where Israeli authorities plan to build another
Jewish-only area settlement that would irrevocably sever the road
between Bethlehem and Jerusalem's Old City and make a contiguous
Palestinian state housing both an impossibility.

Protests against
the Patriarch have been growing for years, but activists hope that the
launching of a new, focused campaign will strengthen the movement.

Majd
Salsa, a Beit Sahour native and supporter of the Gheyr Mostaheq
movement, argues that these land sales are not only unethical and
betrayals of the Palestinian cause, they are also a direct affront to
the Greek Orthodox faithful who transferred the lands into Church hands
for protection.

"During the Ottoman times our ancestors gave
their lands to the Patriarch so they wouldn't have to pay extra taxes,
in full trust that the Patriarch would later return the lands. They
believed he would protect the lands and keep them as a Christian waqf," using the Arabic term for religious endowment.

But
for Salsa, the land issue is only one part of a struggle that he says
began 500 centuries ago, when Ottoman authorities handed custodianship
of the Jerusalem Patriarch to a religious committee composed exclusively
of Greeks, the Brotherhood of the Holy Sepulcher.

This
Brotherhood controls Orthodox holy places across the Holy Land and
chooses the Patriarch, but is run almost entirely without local
Palestinian or Jordanian input.

"The Greek authorities completely
ignore all of the demands of the (Arab) Orthodox, and they refuse to
discuss the topic with anyone, instead acting with racism and
condescension toward us as if they were speaking to people below them,"
Salsa told Ma'an. "But it is the Arab Christians whose land this
originally is. It is their church and they are the ones who started it
2,000 years ago.""We don't need spiritual leadership above us
from abroad," he continued. "Prior to the Ottomans we had Arab
patriarchs ruling over us, including the one who welcomed (Muslim
conqueror) Omar ibn al-Khattab," he said, noting that other Greek
Orthodox churches in the Middle East were also ruled over by local
leadership.

The office of the Greek Patriarchate, however, has so
far shown no signs of giving ground on Arabization of church
leadership, and denies any wrongdoing over land sales.

Part of a pamphlet released by the Orthodox Central Council shows documents purporting to reveal evidence of land sale

General view over the Israeli settlement of Har Homa

'An agenda developed by outsiders'

Issa
Musleh, the Patriarch's spokesman and a Beit Sahour native as well,
dismissed the movement against the Church as "chaos and problems" that
had begun only a few months before over a controversy that erupted over
the changing of a priest's responsibilities in Jordan to one in
Palestine.

He accused Archimandrite Christophoros, previously the
head of a monastery in Dibeen in northern Jordan, of "slandering" the
Church in the media and making dishonest statements, after which he was
dismissed.

Musleh told Ma'an that after the dismissal, activists
came to Palestine to stir up problems in the holiday season, adding:
"Both Christian and Muslim holidays are national holidays and no one is
allowed to do anything to tarnish the positive image that befits our
precious nation of Palestine and especially the city of Bethlehem."

Musleh
also slammed accusations that the Church discriminated against Arabs in
leadership positions, stressing that both Greeks and Arab were Orthodox
and that there should be no distinctions between them.

He did
however highlight that there were not enough Arab priests ready to lead
the church at the current time, adding that in his opinion in Arab
culture there was an emphasis on having children and getting married
that made it difficult for locals to ascend to the position of
Patriarch, which requires celibacy.

"Unfortunately from time to
time some people try to call for Arab leadership and to Arabize the
church. They should first respect the church laws and sacrifice for the
church. And as you know we do not have a state to choose an Arab
Patriarch," he added, pointing to Palestine's continued occupation by
Israel.

Musleh also flatly denied accusations of collaboration with or land sale to the Israeli government.

"Find
me a piece of paper that proves that the Patriarchate or the Holy
Brotherhood of the Holy Sepulcher sold or leased land to the Israeli
occupation," Musleh told Ma'an. He pointed to the Church's close
relationship with Jordanian and Palestinian authorities, as well as
Islamic religious leaders in Palestine, to highlight the Church's
pro-Palestinian stance.

"The Patriarchs and the heads of the
churches are the ones who preserve the Christian existence in the Holy
Land in light of the immigration (of local Christians) because of the
economic and political situation, the separation wall, and the Israeli
checkpoints. We have become less than 1 percent (of the population) in
this country. The number of Christians in Jerusalem is between
10,000-11,000."

"Unfortunately, some people want to use the Greek
Orthodox Patriarchate's properties and there is a specific agenda
developed by outsiders who are playing this game. But we will confront
them and stop them because we will not allow such a situation," he told
Ma'an.

"If they come to the Patriarchate, as church members to
discuss this issue -- and I say this as the spokesman of the Greek
Orthodox Patriarchate -- then the doors of the Patriarchate are open for
church members especially and for all Palestinian and Jordanian people
in general."

"We Christians and Muslims should be united to fight
for and free our land and establish an independent Palestinian State,
and we should support the Palestinian and Jordanian governments' efforts
for our just cause," he added."But there are some outsiders who
want to destroy the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate. We tell them that the
Church has a Lord who sacrificed his life on the cross and said that
evil will not defeat us. We will remain despite the difficulties we are
passing through these days."

Patriarch Theophilos arriving in Manger Square during Christmas

A 'political game'

Majd Salsa, the campaign supporter, told Ma'an that he was not convinced by the arguments made by church officials.

He
said that he had tried repeatedly to gain an audience with the
Patriarch to no avail, and it was this experience -- and that of others
like him, including Arab priests inside the Church -- that had forced
the group to take the protests to the streets during Christmas.

Although
Salsa was hopeful about the prospects for change and "renaissance"
within the Church, he also expressed fears that the movement was caught
in a political game between Palestinian and Jordanian authorities on one
side and the Greek state on the other.

"The biggest problem is
the collusion of Palestinian and Jordanian authorities on this issue.
They consider any attack on the Patriarch unwelcome because they don't
want problems with Greece, which generally has a supportive position
toward the Palestinian state. They don't want to hurt those ties."

"The
Greek state supports the Patriarch, and the fact that they have control
over the Jerusalem Patriarchate … this is a source of power for them."

"If
the (civil authorities) stand with the people they belong to, with the
church membership in Jordan and Palestine, we can achieve our demands
easily," he told Ma'an. "But if they stand as police or an army against
our movement, we cannot."

Authorities have not yet signaled any
clear position on the movement, which organizers have thus far taken as a
sign of their support for the Patriarchate.

The arrests of six
activists during the protest on Orthodox Christmas -- as well as an
incident this reporter witnessed where a man who appeared to belong to
the Palestinian secret services threatened a protester and confined him
to a nearby building under police guard -- suggest that they may be
right.

For Salsa, the incidents suggest a worrying future for the campaign.

"If
the Patriarch is a patriarch for the mother of all churches in
Jerusalem, and he asks for the violent protection of the police and
intelligence services and army from his own people -- the people of his
own church, the people who own the lands that he is selling -- what kind
of Patriarch is this?"